Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) have emerged as one of the preferred technologies for networking wireless communication terminals to one another and to other networks (e.g., the Internet). Exemplary wireless communication terminals can include devices such as laptop computers, desktop computers, palmtop computers, tablet computers, and/or cellular voice/data phones. WLAN communication terminals typically operate according to the IEEE 802.11 specifications and communicate with one another using spread-spectrum radio communications in a defined frequency band such as, for example, 2.4 GHz. WLAN communication terminals which comply with IEEE 802.11 may selectively operate in an infrastructure mode or an ad-hoc mode.
In the infrastructure mode, a WLAN access point (WAP) serves as a network master that sets-up and manages communications among the WLAN communication terminals within its service area, and may communicatively interface the WLAN communication terminals to one another and/or to another network, such as the Internet. All communications between the networked communication terminals are controlled by the WAP.
In contrast, in the ad-hoc mode, WLAN communication terminals form dynamically self-organizing and temporary network topologies. The WLAN communication terminals communicate directly with each other without use of a WAP. For this reason, the ad-hoc mode is also referred to as peer-to-peer mode.
The ad-hoc mode is not widely used because it suffers from a relatively complex user setup process in order to initially configure two or more of the WLAN communication terminals to communicate with one another through a secure interface. To establish a secure interface, one of the WLAN communication terminals must broadcast a common ad-hoc network name (e.g., service set identifier (SSID)) that is correctly searched for and identified by the other WLAN communication terminals. Setting-up the common ad-hoc network name on each of the WLAN communication terminals and establishing the ad-hoc network therebetween can be relatively complex and can be a time consuming burden on users to carry-out each time an ad-hoc network is desired.